We’re starting to get cocky

Thursday night is date night so we decided our first date night in Costa Rica was as good a time as any to try driving at night. It was also our first foray into Atenas where we were going to park on the street. There’s plenty of parking, but there are giant vertical-sided 18″ deep gutters on the shoulder of the streets to handle rainy season deluges. It is very important that one does not try to park too close to the curb because the gutter is deeper than wheel radius of all but the biggest vehicles. This is the kind of thing that pegs my anxiety-o-meter. We managed to park successfully, if maybe a little further out in the street than all of the other cars. Pizzeria de Finca was our target destination. They serve super thin cracker crust pizza and it was fantastic. We got a big salad to share as a starter and split a large pizza. We also splurged on a perfectly adequate bottle of Chilean Merlot. Total bill including tax and tip 21,000 Colones or about $34, with the wine accounting for $13 of the total. Because the hill up to our house is harrowing, we only had one glass of wine each and just put the cork in the bottle to bring home with us. After dinner, we walked over to Pops on the town square for helado (ice cream). I got 2 scoops and Jill got one. Total cost for our postres (dessert) was 3300 colones or $5.50. The full date night tally came in at just under $40. Plus we have now vetted at least one scripted night out with any of our upcoming house guests. Also there was some question as to whether we could navigate the track up to our house in the dark. We put that to rest.

This morning we woke up excited to go to the feria (farmer’s market) with Magda. We executed our new-normal ritual of coffee followed by an omelette, performed our respective morning beauty regimens and were at Magda’s house at 7:45AM.

A note on feria’s: Apparently it is the case that every town in Costa Rica has a feria on Friday mornings and that, whatever your home town is, you are convinced that your town’s feria is best one. Our first experience with this phenomenon was with Javier, our driver from the airport to the hotel on our first night. We mentioned that we were excited to go to the feria on Friday and he told us we should skip the Atenas feria because it was crap and go to the one in Alajuela because it was better.

I can truthfully report that the Atenas feria is fantastic. Because there are lots of things that we’ve never heard of Magda took us around and showed us what was on offer and got the purveyors to give us samples so that we could taste them. Then Magda turned us loose because she had to do her own shopping. We went pretty light on this go round, because like the grocery store, it was a little overwhelming. We also got to practice our numbers because the purchases were generally by kilo and for that reason the purchase prices were not nice round numbers. I was delighted when I successfully deciphered that the half a watermelon we bought was 1,750 colones and I handed the lady correct change on the first go. We ended up buying: watermelon, honeydew mellon, coffee, artisinal cheese, cilantro, tomatoes, red onions, arugula, homemade corn tortilla chips, and avocados. Everything was sourced from the canton of Atenas and the total bill came out to about $20 with $10 of that going toward the coffee. For example our kilo of tomatoes was 500 colones or about 80 cents. Next Friday when Jill’s parents are here we will be more organized and will go with a list.

We brought our feria purchases home and then immediately set out for today’s marquis event: Zoo Avenue, a conservation and rehabilitation park for animals that have been rescued. We navigated to Zoo Avenue with no issues and paid the $20 per person entry fee, which all goes to fund the operation. This may also be a good destination to bring visitors as they have everything from colorful toucans to jaguars to crocodiles and caymans. And there was a 6 foot long iguana standing on the sidewalk that we had to walk around. The only mistake we made all day was not timing lunch better. I ran out of gas at the zoo and we popped into the associated restaurant for lunch.

Here’s where we got cocky… Maybe it was low blood sugar or maybe we were just working on our Spanish and enjoying being able to banter with our waiter, but the net result was we let ourselves get upsold on lunch and ran our lunch tab up to $80 for food that was mediocre at best. We shrugged it off as a learning experience. Now we know that when the waiter tells you that the chef has a fantastic special of very fresh shrimp we need to ask “Cuanto cuesta?” We were also in what was clearly a marked tourist trap.

Before today we’d never driven to the airport. Because Jill’s parents arrive next Thursday for a visit we felt it was important for us to be able to navigate to and properly park at the airport. Freshly fueled up from our $80 lunch we departed Zoo Avenue and headed for the airport. I repeat what I said yesterday about Jill and I communicating very well in the car. The airport ingress and egress is a little harrowing, but Jill talked me through it and we did great. We are now fully capable of taking possession of our guests when they walk out of the arrivals hall and getting them back to our chateau.

Our final logistical first of the day was to fill our car up with gas for the first time. All gas stations in Costa Rica are full service. I practiced saying “Lleno de regular, por favor” (Full of regular, please) and that transaction went without a hitch. I was pleasantly surprised to find that gas in Costa Rica is currently $3.56 per gallon.

Once back from the airport I made Jill afternoon coffee and set about preparing our feria fruit purchases for consumption. I admit that I really like turning big stuff into little stuff, which makes preparing fruit something that gives me joy. While I was doing that, Jill swept our floors (it’s been windy the last few days and with some of the windows open the house is a wind tunnel when you open the door and dust gets sucked in) and made Spanish flash cards.

Everyone in Costa Rica has a side-hustle. Our landlord Magda has to be the hardest working woman in Costa Rica. She let us know a couple of days ago that she has a party coming into the restaurant she has at the bottom of the hill and asked if we’d like to join. We jumped at that offer so we will have 2 date nights in a row. Tonight Magda is making us sea bass cooked in a lemon butter caper sauce for $12 each. We also had her reserve a bottle of what she says is a fantastic Chilean wine for us. For that reason we are walking down to dinner and will take our flashlights for the walk back up. No way am I attempting to drive back up this hill if I’m not fully in control of my faculties.

Tomorrow Jill and I are off bright and early to Bajos del Toro Cataratas to check off another waterfall!

Parting note: You may have noticed a lot of financial accounting in today’s update. I have started tracking all of our expenditures because Jill and I both want to know what it really costs to live in Costa Rica.

Jill’s side note: There are a lot of spiders in Costa Rica. I’m not good at getting close enough to a spider to kill it so I’ll have to figure something out. And did I mention the spiders are HUGE!